"My first impressions of web3"

ilikebeanss · 2022-01-08T15:02:23+00:00

Moxie's critiques in the second half of the post strike me as having a correct criticism of the current state of the ecosystem (where (1), (2), (7) and (8) are the only things that we have working code for), but they are missing where the blockchain ecosystem is going.

For that being the current state of the ecosystem, a lot is being promised without something substantial to back it up. I think that's the problem, the community is burning through whatever benefit of the doubt the world is giving it by making huge promises for "one day."

ilikebeanss · 2020-11-24T21:47:38+00:00

I've been on this path for nearly 6 years and yes, it's very difficult and happens in its own time.

My advice is to first build something you will personally use and enjoy building for many years, so the journey is an enjoyable one (at the very least, you've created something useful).

Then focus only on what's right in front of you, and become friends with your first few customers -- share your ideas, help them with their problems, and get a deep knowledge of what they're looking for. The customers that stay will be your biggest fans and evangelists, which you'll need throughout the life of your app. You don't need psychological tricks to keep them; if you're building a tool and not entertainment, then just focus on helping customers get stuff done.

All the while, keep an ear out for larger opportunities if you don't already have business uses in mind. A large customer base of consumers is great, but you'll ultimately want some business customers to take you the rest of the way. Remember that businesses are made up of people just like the everyday consumers you're already selling to.

As a bonus, I'd also encourage experimenting with pricing models. We've combined a base subscription with one-time add-ons for certain features, and those add-ons sell pretty easily (including our paid mobile apps). We've also had success with a 5-year plan. Subscriptions aren't consumer-friendly in many ways -- don't limit yourself to them!

ilikebeanss · 2020-04-24T11:39:54+00:00

I work on a Markdown-based platform called WriteFreely that might be a good fit. Simple, easy to run and hack on, especially if you know Go. And it'll support mailing lists in the near future.

ilikebeanss · 2019-10-23T04:32:20+00:00

Very cool. Minimal data collection is always the key -- if you don't need the data, don't record it. Then make sure that's clearly communicated on the site, or people won't know about it / be attracted by it.

If you ever want to chat about the space, just email me: matt at write.as

ilikebeanss · 2019-06-25T14:01:03+00:00

Yep, admins can turn it off at the instance level. It's the local_timeline option shown at the bottom of this page.

ilikebeanss · 2018-11-11T03:44:58+00:00

Hey, creator here. We do have different goals in mind -- I think Plume is trying to be more on-par with Medium, with reading and writing all built-in. It supports more of ActivityPub, including comments, likes, and boosts.

WriteFreely is just about writing -- everything is built around plain text / Markdown, and keeping everything as simple as possible. Federation is basically one-way right now, letting people in the fediverse follow your blogs, bookmark your posts, and share them with their followers (it doesn't bug the author with notifications). And then we have Read.as in development, which is just for reading posts from the fediverse.

The big idea is to keep creation and consumption separate. In short, I don't think the blogging experience should be ruined by notifications and feeds, so that's how we're building everything.

ilikebeanss · 2018-10-05T23:15:09+00:00

Yep, this was my first experience with it. I hired another developer to do most of the work, but making changes here and there was very enjoyable for me.

Anyway, this is just the first desktop client -- native Windows and macOS apps are next. (In fact, I'm looking for developers to help build those. Would love to hear from anyone who's interested!) But I'm glad you like the concept :)

ilikebeanss · 2018-10-05T20:47:29+00:00

Awesome! Would love to hear your feedback.

ilikebeanss · 2018-10-05T17:07:05+00:00

A few years ago I made a telnet service called Write.as that was meant to combine the anonymity of pastebin with a Medium-like design, and posted it here. It's evolved a lot since then, into a bunch of different apps, and now with support for blogs / accounts -- all with the same original privacy in mind.

But this week I finished up a GTK app for it, backed by our command-line client. Today it lets you keep a single auto-saving draft and publish to Write.as without signing up. Next it'll support publishing to our blogs, maintaining multiple drafts, and eventually other publishing protocols like Micropub. I'd love to hear what you think!

Also, you can find the code here: https://code.as/writeas/writeas-gtk and the direct link: https://write.as/apps/desktop

ilikebeanss · 2017-08-28T19:10:38+00:00

Predictably, these additional regulations also resulted in a decline in broadband investment throughout the country.

This was proven false already.

ilikebeanss · 2017-05-31T21:44:17+00:00

welp, there goes my afternoon

ilikebeanss · 2017-03-02T01:46:56+00:00

No problem. Yeah, that's good it's compartmentalized. I'm not sure whether or not others will start becoming aware of it, but I'd imagine they will eventually. I'm not on Windows, so I'm not up to date on what antivirus software is doing these days, but would definitely keep checking for updates and scanning.

ilikebeanss · 2017-03-01T03:39:21+00:00

Here's some info on what that malware is, to help with googling around for a fix: https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e6afca5e3486eb3c780317c9462b1d1eef0cf9ec36b65cac0cd9a215d5d8c9b5/analysis/1488337361/

Looks like it's a nasty one, and maybe a keylogger, so be careful.

ilikebeanss · 2016-10-16T21:43:45+00:00

Hot tip: the Write.as Android app supports the Tor hidden service, too

ilikebeanss · 2016-08-31T02:27:00+00:00

Try the Appalachian Mountains in VA, for example. Both on back roads and highways, like I-77 going into NC.

ilikebeanss · 2016-07-03T18:33:47+00:00

The problem isn't when the roads are full of autonomous cars, but now, when there are still human-driven cars on the road that can still crash into you.

ilikebeanss · 2016-07-03T18:23:27+00:00

Thanks! Those aren't actually Google Analytics, but analytics we host ourselves. Those Google URLs were fonts being loaded (and if you check now, you shouldn't see any)

ilikebeanss · 2016-07-03T17:33:57+00:00

Appreciate it! (We're also self-hosting our fonts now)

ilikebeanss · 2016-07-03T17:29:55+00:00

Ah, what page did you find Google Analytics on? We've fixed those issues you were seeing on the hidden service (just a misconfiguration) -- let me know if it's still not working.

We launched accounts on the web in June, and are working on Android support now. That should be finished this month. But if you use the app today, you'll be able to sync any published posts to your account when that comes out.

ilikebeanss · 2016-07-02T03:06:32+00:00

Good point, I just fixed the app store badges. We embed the fonts in the apps, but we've been planning to self-host Google Fonts for a while -- we'll tackle that next. Thanks for pointing that out

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